REPRESENTING JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN 100 COUNTRIES ACROSS SIX CONTINENTS

David Saltiel

David Saltiel was born in Athens on 29th October 1947. He studied watch-making and gemmology in Athens and has an excellent command of Italian, English and French.

He was awarded the title of Cavalliere by the President of the Italian Republic in 2008 and that of Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur by the French Republic in 2011.

An active member of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki for twenty years, David Saltiel has been its President since his election to that office in 2001.

In his capacity as President of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki David Saltiel has played a leading role in the promotion of a number of outstanding issues that the Jews of Greece as a whole: He achieved the inclusion of the Greek Holocaust survivors in the compensation programme Article-2-Fund of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in 2002, he contributed to the establishment of Remembrance Day for Jewish Greek Heroes and Martyrs of the Holocaust by the Greek government in 2004, and as a member of international Jewish organisations has played a role in promoting issues pertaining to Greece and Greek Jews. In 2014 he succeeded in bringing into fruition the long-term projects of the erection of two Holocaust Monuments in the campus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the re-opening of the Faculty of Jewish Studies in the same University. Since 2013 he has been successfully leading the campaign for the foundation of the Holocaust Museum and Educational Center for Human Rights, in Thessaloniki, on the site of the city’s old railway station.

He represented the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki to the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS, Greek abbreviation), which is the main representative body of Greek Jewry, and was elected for the first time president of this body in 2010. He was re-elected at the Presidency of KIS on September 18, 2016, by the 22nd Conference of Representatives of the of the Jewish Communities of Greece.

David Saltiel is involved in a wide range of social activities in Thessaloniki. He has been on the Administrative Council of the city’s Agios Stylianos nursery since 1994, and also on that of the Tsivoglios Educational Foundation.

He is the proprietor of a chain of shops in Athens and Thessaloniki. He is a founding member and member of the Board of Directors of EURICOM Hellas, a company founded in collaboration with EURICOM ITALIA S.P.A. It owns a rice processing plant in Halastra, near Thessaloniki. David Saltiel is also involved in the tourist industry. The first hotel belonging to DAVITEL S.A. opened in Thessaloniki in 2005.